A NEW system has been launched which hopes to improve the way in which patients are treated in Bolton.

The Bolton Care Record is a shared computer record of a person's health and social care details.

Launched yesterday, it means a professional in the NHS can access information on a patient's treatment — including medications, allergies and test results.

It is hoped by keeping on the information in one electronic system to be shared among places such as GP practices and Royal Bolton Hospital, it will speed up and improve the care received by patients.

At the latest meeting of NHS Bolton Clinical Commissioning Group, chairman Dr Wirin Bhatiani said: "It is a really fantastic start after a lot of testing and nine early adoptive practices who have put it into practice.

"It is a confidential computer system with private health and social information which remains confidential but can be accessed by relevant health care professionals. It can only be accessed if the patient says it can be accessed.

"People will be surprised this has not already been done before. Basically if a patient is in A&E a doctor can check their records to find out what their usual condition is.

"Say you are in A&E they can see your regular blood pressure result and identify if there is a significant change, or see that you have been diagnosed with asthma.

"This is really exciting and a fantastic move forward for the care of our patients."

The record can currently be shared with a person's GP, Royal Bolton Hospital and Bardoc — which runs the out-of-hours GP service — to avoid patients repeating information, cut down clinical tests and improve prescriptions.

Only care professionals directly involved in a persons care can access the details and patients can refuse a person access or opt out of the scheme.

It is hoped to expand across further GPs in the coming months.

Dr Bhatiani said the system had been tested to the highest security standards but there were some voices of concern.

Bolton Healthwatch trustee Jim Sherrington said: "I think it is excellent what you are trying to achieve but I worry about the technology. You see in the papers where technology has been broken down by people who shouldn't be in it.

"It give me great cause for concern to think of my records on public display, otherwise I encourage it if it can someone in hospital or who has been in the accident get faster treatment."